The World's Fair : What different parts of the world possess.

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David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.

Benjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.

Trying to find your way around this place? Like most expositions, we offer a map: Map of The World's Fair

"The world is full of light and life, and the true crime is not to be interested in it." A.S. Byatt

And so forth...

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What different parts of the world possess.

Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
Posted on: December 7, 2006 10:20 AM, by David Ng

Since there was a lot of interest in Faith's and Peter's "Hungry Planet" book, it's only fitting to share the beauty of their first bestseller, "Material World" which is a book that focused on visually representing the total possessions of "average" family households from different countries (again with the "average" word). I do have this book (it's great), and I should also point out that it's actually available as a paperback.

Since this book was published in 1993, it's actually harder to find images on the net (although there is a good section at Peter's website), but then good old google can always deliver.

Here is an image of an American household in 2001. More below the fold, primarily from the 1993 book.

The Caven and Ronayne Family, American Canyon, California, U.S.A., 200 (link)

The Ukita family, 4:30pm December 16, 1992 Tokyo, Japan (link)

The Natomo family, 6:30am March 27, 1993 Kouakourou, Mali (link)

The Thoroddsen Family, HafnarfjÃ¶rdur, Iceland, 4:00 p.m., December 15, 1993 (link)

The Kuenkaew family, 5:30pm, May 31, 1993 Ban Muang Wa, Thailand (link)

The Namgay family, 4pm June 7, 1993 Shingkhey, Bhutan (link)

Anyway, visually awesome once again (and if any of you reading this have heard him talk, I'm interested to know whether he was a good orator, since I happen to organize a speaker series from time to time in my neck of the woods).

(Available from Amazon)

Comments

I had a professor once who always talked about "making things visible" as the purpose of all scholarship, and it was meant directly and in the abstract, but, damn, these pictures, like the last, are quite powerful. not to mention the direct expression with images of "making things visible."

Posted by: BRC | December 7, 2006 1:57 PM

BRC, you mentioned "a professor...who always talked about 'making things visible' as the purpose of all scholarship".

Making things visible: I like that!

With a quick web search I see a few uses of that phrase, but only in unrelated contexts. Does that professor have a public web presence or published documents about "making things visible"? I would be grateful if you could make them more visible.

Thanks!

Posted by: etbnc | December 8, 2006 10:17 AM